1918June: MJH arrives in France to serve in the Army Medical Corps. While there he studies French and Liberal Arts at the Université de Poitiers, and serves on the editorial staff of Les Beaux Jours, the weekly publication for the students of the Université.

1919July: MJH returns to the U.S.; receives honorable discharge from the Army.

1920MJH attends the University of Chicago, receiving PhB. degree in June; moves to New York to do graduate work in sociology.

1921Receives M.A. from Columbia University in anthropology. He rooms for a time with fellow Columbia student, Paul Robeson; Margaret Mead was co-student under Franz Boas.

1923Receives PhD. in anthropology from Columbia University under Franz Boas. His dissertation "The Cattle Complex in East Africa", is the first to apply the ethnological concept of the "culture-area", which had previously been applied to native American cultures only, to an African context. MJH begins research into race mixing/physical anthropology. Receives fellowship in anthropology from the Board of Biological Sciences, National Research Council (NRC) through 1926.

1925Teaches at Howard University with NRC Fellowship; uses access to black population to gather further anthropometric data; publishes "Preliminary Observations in a Study of Negro-White Crossing",(Opportunity, 3, no.27(Mar. 1925.): 69-74).

1926Returns to New York City and employs Zora Neale Hurston, fellow anthropology student at Columbia University, among others, to gather data on Negro physiometry; resumes lectures at Columbia University.

1927Finishes "Negro Race" manuscript. Moves to Evanston, Illinois to accept position at North Western University's Sociology Department asassistant professor of anthropology.

1930An expanded version of "The American Negro", entitled The Anthropometry of the American Negro (New York: Columbia University Press, Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 11, 1930) is published. In October, first co-author- ship with Frances, "Bush-Negro Art", (The Arts, vol. 17, no. 1 (Oct. 1930): 25-37, 48-49), is published. FSH travels to Paris.

1934MJH elected Vice-President, National Academy of Sciences, A.A.A.S.; conducts field research with Frances in Haiti. Their book, Rebel Destiny: Among the Bush Negroes of Dutch Guiana, (New York, Whittlesey House, 1934) is published.

1935MJH appointed full professor at Northwestern University. Daughter Jean Frances is born May 20.

1936Suriname Folklore, with transcriptions of Surinam songs and musicological analysis by Dr. M. Kolinski, written by Melville and Frances,(Columbia University Contributions to Anthropology, vol. 27, New York: Columbia University Press, 1936) is published. The Herskovitses work with graduate student William Bascomb and post-graduate students Ralph Bunche and George Eaton Simpson.

1937MJH receives Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship; the family travels to England; MJH writes "The Economic Life of Primitive People". Life in a Haitian Valley (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1937) and Dahomey, An Ancient West African Kingdom (New York: J.J. Augustin, 1937) are published.

1938MJH appointed Chair of Northwestern's Anthropology Department.

1939MJH is approached by Gunnar Myrdal for criticism of the research plan for his Carnegie Corporation funded study of the American Negro, (later published as An Amercan Dilemma, New York: Harper Brothers, 1944) and agrees to undertake a research project. MJH and FSH travel to Toco, Trinidad, June-September. MJH becomes Chair of the Committee of Negro Studies, American Council of Learned Societies (-1950), President of the CentralSection of the American Anthropological Association and serves on the Council of Human Relations of the Forestry Service (-1945).

1941Melville, Frances and Jean leave for Brazil, while there MJH receives the title of Honorary Professor of Anthropology from the Facultad do Filosofia at Bahia. The Myth of the Negro Past (New York: Harper and Bros., 1941), MJH's study for

1942MJH served as Chief Consultant of the Board of Economic Warfare.

1945MJH serves as Chairman of the Committee on International Cooperation in Anthropology of the National Research Council (-1946).

1948MJH is named Director of Northwestern University's Program of African Studies, the first in the United States. Man and His Works, (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc. 1948) a general anthropology/theoretical text, is published.

1949MJH serves as Editor for American Anthropologist (1952), and prepares manuscript of "Continuity and Change in African Cultures" with co-editor William Bascomb.

1950MJH is Editor of the International Directory of Anthropologists.

1952 Economic Anthropology: A Study in Comparative Economics (New York: A.A. Knopf, Inc., 1952) (a re-writing of the 1940 Economic Life of Primitive Peoples) is published. MJH is named a Fulbright Fellow and in December the Herskovitses, with grants from the American Philosophical Society, the United States Education Committee in Great Britain, the Social Science Research Council, and others, embark on a ten-month tour of Africa: Portuguese East Africa, British East Africa, the Eastern part of the Belgian Congo and British Central Africa (Gold Coast Nigeria, Cameroons, Congo, Angola, Rhodesia, Mozambique, and the Union of South Africa). Jean enters Swarthmore College.

1953MJH is named Viking Fund Medalist in General Anthropology; his biography of his teacher, Franz Boas, the Science of Life in the Making, (New York and London: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953) is published.

1957The Herskovitses make another trans-Africa journey, from Dakar to Durban, arriving for Ghana's Independence celebrations. The findings of their trip were given in testimony before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate.

1958MJH is elected first President of the African Studies Association. Dahomean Narrative, a Cross-Cultural Analysis, co-authored with FSH (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1958) and Continuity and Change in African Cultures co-editor William Bascomb, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958) are published. MJH travels to Costa Rica and Paris.

1959MJH is elected a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, and travels to Belgium.

1959MJH is appointed President's Fellow and Professor of African Affairs, (first Chair of African Studies in the United States) at Northwestern University; participates in Nigeria's Independence Day and attends the Sixth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences in Paris. Jean receives her PhD. in History from Oxford University, England.

1961MJH received honorary D.Sc. from Lawrence College; attends the Abidjan Conference on Religion and the International Social Science Council meeting. Jean is hired as lecturer of political science at Brown University.

1962MJH serves on the Council of African Affairs for the U.S. State Department. In December MJH delivers plenary address at the First International Conference of Africanists in Accra,Ghana; The Human Factor in Changing AfricaNew York: A.A. Knopf, Inc. 1962) is published.

1962-1967Jean teaches at Swarthmore.

1963MJH dies at home in Evanston, Illinois on February 25 at age 67 of a heart attack. Jean Herskovits presents a paper at the annual meeting of the African Studies Association in San Francisco; FSH participates in a seminar given at the University of Nevada. The Melville J. Herskovits Papers are donated to Northwestern University in November.

1964January-April: FSH travels to Nigeria to do fieldwork with Felicia Ekejiuba, on a project to study the history of the Aro (an Ibo people) of Eastern Region, Nigeria. FSH is added to the List of Associates of Current Anthropology.

1965FSH is appointed Lecturer in English in the College of Arts and Sciences, Northwestern University to teach literature of Sub-Saharan Africa (—1968). International lecture exchange between Northwestern and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland in honor of MJH commences. Jean's book, A Preface to Modern Nigeria: The Sierra Leonians in Yoruba, 1830-1890 (University of Wisconsin, 1965) is published.

1966The New World Negro, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966), FSH's compilation of MJH's writings, is published.

1966January-March : FSH travels to Brazil to the Center for Afro-Oriental Studies, University of Bahia, Salvador, Brazil for follow-up on research done in 1941-42; works on manuscript of traditional literary resources and contemporary African writing. Jean appointed Assistant Professor at The City College of New York (-1971).

1977Jean appointed Full Professor at the State University of New York, Purchase, New York.

The Melville J. and Frances S. Herskovits Papers consist of the research data (field notes, both handwritten and typed) used for their seminal publications on both Old and New World African cultures, manuscripts of their books and published articles, conference papers and materials relating to their careers as academicians, as well as some personal papers.
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